Monday, October 15, 2012

Broken Governmental Institutions Sacrifice Citizens' Health Around the World

Every day I read a new headline that makes me sick with sadness and frustration. How can it be that our governmental organizations became so corrupted?

The World Health Organization is about to issue a new report on birth defects in Iraq. Will the organization act morally and present unbiased findings and conclusions or will it manipulate evidence, analysis, and interpretation to protect the powerful corporate and government interests that fund the agency?

We see today a new level of abdication of governmental responsibility for protecting citizens' health, as illustrated in the willingness of the US to import freely Fukushima beef. See my discussion below.

Will the World Health Organization follow suit and deny and trivialize the horrific birth defects wrought upon the citizens of Iraq by US weapons? Huge Rise in Iraq Birth Defects Linked to US Cluster Bombing By Sarah Morrison, Independent UK 15 October 12

[Excerpted] It played unwilling host to one of the bloodiest battles of
the Iraq war. Fallujah's homes and businesses were left shattered; hundreds of
Iraqi civilians were killed. Its residents changed the name of their "City
of Mosques" to "the polluted city" after the United States
launched two massive military campaigns eight years ago. Now, one month before
the World Health Organisation reveals its view on the legacy of the two battles
for the town, a new study reports a "staggering rise" in birth
defects among Iraqi children conceived in the aftermath of the war.

High rates of miscarriage, toxic
levels of lead and mercury contamination and spiralling numbers of birth
defects ranging from congenital heart defects to brain dysfunctions and
malformed limbs have been recorded. Even more disturbingly, they appear to be
occurring at an increasing rate in children born in Fallujah, about 40 miles
west of Baghdad.

There is "compelling
evidence" to link the increased numbers of defects and miscarriages to
military assaults, says Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the lead authors of the
report and an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan's School
of Public Health. Similar defects have been found among children born in Basra after
British troops invaded, according to the new research....

Majia here: I will be surprised if the World Health Organization raises its voice about this issue of genocide. My bet is that they will deny the relationship between depleted uranium and birth defects and trivialize the correlation between the birth defects and US military assaults.

Denial seems to be the name of the game for our governmental institutions.

Majia here: This is really outrageous. Fukushima Diary reported on a new "Fukushima Syndrome" killing off cattle in the Fukushima region. These cattle develop diarrhea and snivels before dying. Does that sound like radiation sickness to you?

Beef from the region that these cows died in are going to be served in restaurants in the US. You could be eating cows exposed to high levels of radiation.

I've been reporting on contaminated beef for over a year now. The Japanese government has had no centralized testing. Most testing on beef conducted by prefectures, cities and businesses has used radiation detectors.

The results from a radiation detector are NOT equivalent with laboratory analysis with a scintillator, which is what is required to ensure safety.

Believe it or not, the US just RESUMED imports of Japanese beef. It had been banned prior to 3/11 for foot and moth disease.

In
the past, the US had no trouble banning Japanese beef for
foot-and-mouth disease, but now throws open the doors for radiated beef,
despite widespread evidence of its contamination: Radiation-Tainted
Beef Spreads ...

"The
revelation has raised all kinds of questions about how much
contaminated beef had already been consumed, kicking off a food scare
that continues to grow asmore tainted meat is disovered. "A Wall Street
Journal ...

It
is not surprising that high levels of radiation have been detected in
Japanese food exports out of contaminated regions, particularly in tea
and beef. For instance, radioactive cesium exceeding the Japanese
government's ...

Large
samples should be tested in laboratory-like settings to obtain results,
said Joseph Rotunda, who heads the radiation measurement division at
toolmaker Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Determining whether food, water
or ...

Fukushima
Radiation Emissions and Disturbances August 29 2012. Series of
Disturbing Images from Fukushima Dated 8/29/2012. These links were
posted by individuals at Enenews including Wotcha, Wideawake, and ...

Japan Decides Not to Lift Shipping Ban of Fukushima Beef. NHK: More ...
A week or so ago I posted about the lack of any national system in
Japan for checking the radiation in food consumed by the country or
exported.

1 comment:

You can be sure that ALL the Fukushima prefecture beef shipped to the US will violate the maximum Japanese cesium standards. Instead of destroying it, they send it to the US. They dump the cesium into the bodies of American children, for profit.

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).